submitted by /u/Majano57 [link] [comments]

Image: Nintendo The next Nintendo generation is upon us and if you're not already on the Switch 2 bandwagon, it's apparently something you "really can't miss" according to Nintendo's Bill Trinen. Speaking to GameSpot, Trinen mentioned how he hopes the fanbase can see how Nintendo Switch 2 launch window titles Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza are "sort of" genre-defining and franchise-defining moments as well as "must-play" experiences: Bill Trinen: "Hopefully people are also seeing that with games like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bonanza, these are sort of genre-defining or franchise-defining moments for each of these games that really take advantage of the uniqueness of the Nintendo Switch 2 hardware...Each of those games to me feels like something that you really can't miss. These are must-play games for you to experience what Nintendo is doing next."Mario Kart World in Bill's words represents a "philosophical" change to the formula as the courses are now interconnected. As for Donkey Kong Bananza, well - it's got destructible environments (allowing you to smash everything in sight) and DK has "a new friend" to tag along with him. Mario Kart World will launch alongside the Switch 2 on 5th June and Donkey Kong Bananza will launch a month later in July. Image: Nintendo The World Wide Road Bananza split Do you feel like these next-generation entries in the Mario Kart and Donkey Kong series are going to be "must-play" games and potentially defining moments for these genres and franchises? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. [source gamespot.com] Related Games See Also Share:0 0 Liam is a news writer and reviewer for Nintendo Life and Pure Xbox. He's been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of Mario and Master Chief. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment... Related Articles Where To Pre-Order Nintendo Switch 2 Update: Nintendo pre-orders live in Europe today (with an invite!) Nintendo Switch 2 Direct: Time, Where To Watch, What To Expect It's time for Switch 2 It's Official, Switch 2 Joy-Con Will Not Feature Hall Effect Sticks Controllers have been designed from the ground up Nintendo Is (Kinda) Returning To Region-Locking With A Cheaper Japanese Switch 2 Priced 49,980 yen, which is around $333 USD

If you ever call 911 from an area that’s hard to get to, you might hear the buzz of a drone well before a police cruiser pulls up. And there’s a good chance that it will be one made by Brinc Drones, a Seattle-based startup founded by 25-year-old Blake Resnick, who dropped out of college to run the company. Brinc, which was founded in 2017 and counts OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as a seed-stage investor, just announced today that it has raised $75 million in new funding led by Index Ventures. This brings the startup’s total funding to $157.2 million. While Brinc isn’t disclosing its exact valuation, Resnick told TechCrunch it’s an “up-round” compared to its most recent round, a $55 million Series B in 2022. Brinc was last valued at $300 million in 2023, Bloomberg reported. Brinc sells a variety of drone systems to police and public safety agencies. It’s part of a broader trend of U.S. drone startups manufacturing domestically due to increasing restrictions against Chinese companies that dominate the commercial drone industry. (Resnick briefly interned at DJI, by far the biggest Chinese player, a few years before founding Brinc.) With this funding, Brinc is launching a “strategic alliance” with Motorola Solutions, which also invested in the round. Motorola Solutions is a giant in the U.S. security industry whose software powers many 911 call centers. The partnership will integrate Brinc drones directly into those centers, allowing operators to dispatch drones for certain emergency calls if they’re cleared by an existing Motorola AI system. Brinc is, however, in an increasingly competitive field with other U.S. startups like Flock Safety and Skydio. Each also offers drones for police, and have multibillion-dollar valuations. Flock stood at $7.5 billion in its latest round last month while Skydio was valued at $2.2 billion in 2023. When it comes to the competition, Resnick tells TechCrunch that there’s plenty of room for growth in a market that is otherwise dominated by Chinese players. Beyond the Motorola partnership, he says Brinc offers its share of unique features, like the ability to break windows or deliver emergency medical devices.

A pollinator garden and public greenhouse are among the new features coming to the San Antonio Botanical Garden (SABG). Last June, SABG announced Reed Hilderbrand, SO – IL, and others would renovate the 38-acre campus. This month, Reed Hilderbrand shared renderings that visualize the longterm, $8.3 million strategic masterplan. The masterplan, Reed Hilderbrand said, will further position SABG as an educational and cultural hub for the city. It introduces new access programs aimed at underserved parts of San Antonio, and is informed by lengthy community input sessions. Other envisioned features include the Texas Native Trail’s renewal, representing the three ecological regions of Texas. The masterplan prioritizes improving circulation and accessibility. (Courtesy SABG and Reed Hilderbrand) SO – IL is designing a new Horticultural Campus and Public Greenhouse for the site. In renderings, these structures have translucent roofs and rounded, conical massings that echo that of the Emilio Ambasz–designed Lucile Halsell Conservatory. “We have loved working with the full-hearted community of the Garden to set this new vision together,” Beka Sturges, Reed Hilderbrand principal, said in a statement. “Appealing to the senses and spirit, our plan opens up the horticultural campus for education and enlivens the center of the garden with an immersive pollinator meadow. We’re welcoming more people from across San Antonio to a future centered on conservation.”Shading structures and tree canopies will help provide comfort in the warmest months. (Courtesy SABG and Reed Hilderbrand) Today, pathways within SABG are often disjointed and hard to navigate, creating a confusing visitor experience. The design, Reed Hilderbrand added, prioritizes pedestrian circulation. The reimagined pathways will offer moments of pause and comfort, framed by “ribbons of gardens.” Carefully graded routes will eliminate stairs, ensuring accessibility for those with mobility limitations. Shade structures, tree canopies, and rest stations will be interspersed throughout the campus; this will be especially appreciated during midday heat. Local residents will have access to community gardens. (Courtesy SABG and Reed Hilderbrand) The masterplan considers the longterm maintenance of the gardens and grounds. (Courtesy SABG and Reed Hilderbrand) “We are working hard to create a future where conservation and sustainability are at the heart of everything we do,” noted Katherine Trumble, SABG president and CEO. “Our programs are designed to help individuals and communities reduce their environmental impact while enriching their lives through nature.” The contribution by SO – IL arrives as the office engages in another prominent landscape project further afield, a pavilion at Art Omi in Chatham, New York. Other collaborators include consultants that will address economic, sustainability, grounds management, and engineering needs: James Lima Planning & Design, Thornton Tomasetti, Tim Marshall/ETM Associates, and San Antonio’s Pape Dawson. The strategic masterplan is slated for completion in the next 10–15 years.

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the US’s National Security Agency (NSA) and the FBI, alongside Five Eyes partner agencies from Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and the German cyber authorities, have issued a series of advisories warning individuals at risk of hostile state surveillance to be alert to two spyware variants, dubbed Moonshine and BadBazaar. So far, the malicious applications have been detected on the mobile devices of individuals considered to be of interest to the Chinese intelligence services. For now, their known victim profile appears to be limited to people associated with the Taiwanese, Tibetan and Uyghur Muslim communities, and other groups such as the Falun Gong movement. However, given the scope of Beijing’s cyber espionage operations, they could easily be used against targets located in the West, conceivably including members of the Hong Kong diaspora and pro-democracy activists in the UK. Moonshine and BadBazaar both employ a technique known as trojanising, whereby they hide their malicious functionality inside apparently legitimate applications, to access device functions such as microphones and cameras, location data, messages and photos. “With our international and industry partners, we are committed to helping equip individuals at risk of online surveillance with the information they need to counter spyware threats,” said NCSC operations director Paul Chichester. The NCSC urges people at higher risk to exercise heightened vigilance and follow our practical advice to help keep their devices and data safe Paul Chichester, NCSC “We are seeing a rise in digital threats designed to silence, monitor and intimidate communities across borders, and the use of these two forms of spyware is clearly unacceptable. “The NCSC urges people at higher risk to exercise heightened vigilance and follow our practical advice outlined in the advisory to help keep their devices and data safe,” added Chichester. Among the trojanised apps discovered by the Five Eyes agencies are compromised instances of Microsoft’s soon-to-be-discontinued Skype and Meta’s WhatsApp messaging services. However, both Moonshine and BadBazaar have also been observed hiding within apps that the threat actor behind the spying campaign appears to have designed to lure in victims. Among them is an application called TibetOne, an iOS app designed to support language learning that has the ability to access device information and location data. The app was uploaded to the App Store as long ago as December 2021, but is no longer available. A second app identified, Audio Quran.apk, was used specifically to target members of the Uyghur Muslim community located in China’s remote western Xinjiang region with Moonshine. The Turkic Uyghurs have been subject to repression by the Chinese authorities, which has been described as genocide by the Americans. Like TibetOne, Audio Quran collected a wealth of information from its victims. Besides the two new advisories – one containing guidance for potential victims, the other a technical breakdown of each spyware, including advice for app store operators, developers and social media companies – the NCSC has also shared four key steps that all individuals, regardless of their risk profile, should be taking to safeguard their devices. Stay mainstream: Refrain from trying to jailbreak or root devices and only download applications from trusted app stores. Stay organised: Audit your installed apps, and their permissions, on a regular basis. Stay in touch: Report suspicious messages or files. Stay safe: Be cautious on social media, and check and review shared files or links for malicious activity. Read more about spyware A court has given the go-ahead to UK-based blogger Yusuf Al-Jamri to seek damages from the Kingdom of Bahrain after it deployed spyware from Israel’s NSO Group to hack his phone. Report from Google TAG suggests that Russia’s APT29 is using vulnerability exploits first developed from spyware vendors to target Mongolian government websites. Mobile malware can come in many forms, but users might not know how to identify it. Understand the signs to be wary of on Android devices, as well as what to do to remove malware.

Looking for help with today's New York Times Wordle? Here are hints, clues and commentary to help you solve today's Wordle and sharpen your guessing game.

What just happened? A coalition of publishers, including The New York Times and The Guardian, has launched a campaign demanding the US government to hold Big Tech accountable for using creative content to develop artificial intelligence products. Organized by the News/Media Alliance, the "Support Responsible AI" campaign accuses tech giants of exploiting copyrighted material without compensating the creators. The campaign's website frames this practice as a direct threat to content creators' livelihoods. Accompanying the initiative are bold red-and-white advertisements featuring slogans like "Protect Jobs from AI Theft," "AI Steals from You Too," and "Keep Watch on AI." The alliance stated that these ads will appear in hundreds of news publications and digital platforms nationwide in the coming days. Other participants in the coilition include The Atlantic, Seattle Times, and Politico owner Axel Springer. The movement presents three demands for policymakers. First, it calls for legislation that requires Big Tech and AI companies to fairly compensate creators when using their work to train their AI systems. Second, it seeks mandatory transparency in the sourcing and attribution of AI-generated content. Lastly, it urges action to prevent monopolistic practices that could stifle competition and coerce smaller players in the industry. President and CEO of the News/Media Alliance Danielle Coffey emphasized that the news media industry is not opposed to AI technology but advocates for a balanced system that ensures responsible innovation. "We want an ecosystem where AI provides a return to the quality content that fuels its intelligence," she said. The campaign emerged from the escalating tension between media organizations and AI companies. Recently, OpenAI released an image-generation tool that mimics iconic anime styles, such as those of Studio Ghibli, drawing backlash from artists on social media. Many artists have criticized AI tools for appropriating their work without consent, with some even leaving platforms like X after they discovered that the site had used their posts to train AI models. Similar disputes have arisen in other corners of the internet. For example, last year on BlueSky, users criticized a Hugging Face machine learning librarian for releasing a dataset derived from publicly available BlueSky posts to train AI models. // Related Stories The conflict between major publishers and AI companies is nothing new. In December 2023, The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing them of using its articles without authorization to train AI models. A federal judge allowed the case to proceed, rejecting OpenAI's attempt to dismiss it. The US campaign is an echo of efforts abroad. In February, several prominent UK newspapers launched an initiative against unauthorized AI training on copyrighted materials. Their "MAKE IT FAIR" campaign featured bold front-page statements urging readers to support protections for creative content against unlicensed use by AI systems.

If you’d been thinking of buying an Audi, now might be the time.  The German brand, owned by the Volkswagen Group, has announced it would halt shipments to the U.S. in the wake of President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on all imported vehicles. Audi is currently holding cars that arrived after the tariffs took effect, on April 3, in U.S. ports. But it still has around 37,000 vehicles in its U.S. inventory, which should be able to meet demand for about two months, according to Reuters. Recommended Videos Automakers on average hold enough cars to meet U.S. demand for about three months, according to Cox Automotive. Audi should be particularly affected by the tariffs: The Q5, its best-selling model in the U.S., is produced in Mexico, while other models, such as the A3, A4, and A6 are produced in Germany. Holding shipments is obviously a temporary measure to buy time for Audi and parent company Volkswagen. If tariffs stay in place, vehicle prices would likely have to go up accordingly, unless some production is shifted to the U.S. Volkswagen already has a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is planning a new plant in South Carolina. That latter plant, however, isn’t expected to be operational until 2027 and is currently dedicated to building electric vehicles for VW’s Scout Motors brand. Other global automakers have also taken drastic measures in response to Trump’s tariffs. Jaguar Land Rover on April 5 said it is pausing shipments of its its UK-made cars to the United States this month. The British sports-luxury vehicle maker noted that the U.S. market accounts for nearly a quarter of its global sales, led by the likes of Range Rover Sports, Defenders, and Jaguar F-PACE. And on April 3, Nissan, the biggest Japanese vehicle exporter to the United States, announced it will stop taking new U.S. orders for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs, the QX50 and QX55.

Google invented new techniques to enhance resolution and generated new character performances to bring the 1939 film to the giant screen.

The highlights of the troupe’s current programs at the Joyce Theater are Graham’s own works, as well as those most directly inspired by her.